Protect whistleblowers and go after the real killers

Moses Tshake, Lawrence Moepi, Oupa Matlaba, Sammy Mpatlanyana, Andile Matshaya.

These names have simply become footnotes in South Africa’s post 1994 government history.

If the names of Noby Ngomane, Sindiso Magaqa and Jimmy Mohlala are added to that list, there is a slight chance that some people might notice that it is a list of government officials who have been assassinated in this country since the dawn of democracy.

Magaqa, Ngomane and Mohlala’s deaths made the news because of their high political profiles, but the majority of the hundreds of assassinations that have occurred in South Africa since the dawn of democracy are of low-level politicians, or government officials.

Babita Deokaran joined that list this past week.

As sad as it might be for the country and especially her family and friends, the chief director of finance in the Gauteng’s department of health will most likely also become just another footnote in this country’s violent political landscape.

Like Tshake, Moepi and Matlala, who were all financial auditors attached to government departments and were involved in unearthing financial irregularities that would have led to the exposure of some big and powerful people, Deokaran was possibly killed to silence her.

The only way for her not to become a forgettable footnote is if those big and powerful people get linked to the planning and execution of her assassination through the courts.

The assassination of government officials involved in the day-to-day decision-making in key government departments not only weakens governance, it instils fear in hundreds of others who are in similar positions.

Deokaran was an ordinary member of society who still did things as mundane as dropping of her child at school, as she did on the Monday morning that she was killed.

This ordinary member of society wielded extraordinary power in the humdrum of government finance work.

She was killed because her ordinary work threatened big people. And it is those big people who need to be exposed.

The fear that is instilled in other government employees by the killing of people like Deokaran can only be eradicated by ensuring that the arrest of her killers does not only include the hired hands that pulled the trigger, but extends to the big and powerful men and women who order the hits.

As simple as it might sound, the killing of the next Deokaran or Mohlala can only be prevented by a corrupt and powerful person thinking “what if I get caught?”.

Corruption in South Africa has become endemic, which is why when the president announced the R500 billion Covid relief fund in 2020, almost all South African knew that the fat cats were rubbing their hands in glee.

Without people like Deokaran, the extent of the rot that was uncovered by the Special Investigating Unit and the auditor-general would never have been uncovered.

It takes courage for an ordinary government official to refuse to authorise payment when they know it is irregular or no work was done to justify the payment.

It takes courage because they might end up like Babita, Mohlala, Magaqa and others.

It’s been said “in order for evil to prevail, all that needs to happen is for good people to do nothing”.

In this case, the “good” people are President Cyril Ramaphosa and National Prosecuting Authority head Shamila Batohi.

The president must ensure adequate political and physical security for people like Deokaran and Batohi must go to the ends of the earth to ensure her powerful killers are jailed